A great place to chill during cannabis sessions.

I’ve been experimenting with light cannabis use prior to my workouts for the past several weeks, and the results have been impressive, though slightly counter-intuitive at face value. When viewed through the historic lens of lethargy, couch-lock comas, and an air of demotivation and apathy, exercise and cannabis seem to be enemies diametrically opposed. However, power users can attest that this historic lens is a false representation of the actual effects that this wonderful plant can produce. In fact, the strain, composition, and even the users’ mindset can drastically change the consumptive effects.

I’ve found the best pre-workout fuel to be 2 to 4 hits on the Pax2 at heating level 2, 10 to 15 minutes before walking through the gym doors. This gives ample time for the calming, focused effect to wash over and put me in the zone for that days exercise. I find a hybrid (light on The indica) is a great mix as it combines a focused mind with a relaxed body.

Here are a few of the results I’ve personally experienced. *Mandatory Disclaimer: The below experiences are reflective of a daily medicator and anyone deciding to follow a similar experiment should be very familiar with their individual tolerance and their personal reactions before introducing canabis to their regimen.*

Core body temp rise and Accelerated heart rate with less vigerous work. As ganja can accelerate your resting heart rate (the reason movies or TV are SO Intense!), you’re starting off on an elevated baseline. So you’re getting more bang for your buck as your HR will be slightly higher compared to the same work load or level completely sober. Higher heart rate during exercise raises the body temp as blood volume circulation increases, forcing sweating and accelerating the metabolism.

More in tune to body, breathing, and muscles. This is a big focal point I’ve noticed. I am extremely intuned to each movement and the effect on and response from my individual muscles and my body as a connected machine. There is a complete, laser focus on the task at hand without outside influences clouding the mind. From breathing concentration, to full range of motion during lifting reps, to a rhythmic groove during a run or other cardio exercise, I am in the moment, fully connected to the task at hand. It adds a theraputic element to the workout, contrasted with a sober view of dreading the intensity or having the mind wander to other outside influences instead of being in the present moment. One of the biggest benefits of exercise is the physical and emotional reaults, and cannabis helps inspire and direct focus towards that well-being in my experience.

Higher degree of set and rep completion along with a plateau breaking desire to keep pushing. This is another benefit I’ve been impressed by. There is a determination to complete the reps, sets, mileage, or timing goals that are set by the workout. Cannabis creates an internal competition where I don’t want to admit defeat and I’m able to push through for that last 20 seconds or the last 3 reps when my body is saying “That’s it”. My cannabis brain says, “just a few more; push through this temporary pain for long term payoff”. The result is a better workout and a consistent improvement to push through perceived barriers.

Stretching. Finally, when I’ve completed the days’ workout, there is one more benefit that cannabis provides and it’s in the arena of stretching. It relates back to being connected with your muscles, and I feel it allows me to really get deep into my stretches because I am able to feel that stretch in a more complete way than without the cannabis influence. Its a way to regulate the breathing, get tension relief into those areas you just pushed to an extreme, and connect mentally to the positive effects of the exercise that you just completed.

All in all, I feel that cannabis and exercise are great compliments to one another and allow for a total mind-body well-being combination.

If you’ve had any experience related to cannabis and exercise, please share your insights in the comments section.

Like this:

Last night sent an already historic presidential race careening into the primaries amid an unprecedented amount of turmoil. Trump took a major lead for the Republican’s, but Cruz refuses to respond to the bug spray and go back into his hole in Texas. Clinton took home seven states to Sanders’ four, but the progressive still had impressive turns at the polls. In the seven states that he lost, Sanders won around a third of the vote or more, sometimes nearly half, with the two exceptions being Alaska and Georgia with 19% and 28% respectively. Still a considerable pull for someone who never stood a chance…
With the most populous states yet to vote (Texas being the exception), the race is far from over. Trump and Clinton both gave their speeches from Florida amid their continued campaign. Clinton’s message changed somewhat from earlier in her campaign. Her speech attempted to unite her party’s foundation against Trump and win over some of Sanders’ base with some progressive lingo borrowed directly from Sanders’ talking points. Seeing her attitude change towards the progressive policies is encouraging, but the American people have been fooled by this before. It’s old politics and her rhetoric is only masking the nebulous possibilities of what a Clinton presidency could hold.
Elsewhere in Florida, Trump gave his Super Tuesday victory speech. First introduced by Chris Christie, the fat bully and bigot from New Jersey, there was great pleasure to take in watching Christie share the airwaves while Trump expelled his signature gaseous eruptions. Christie, standing over Trump’s right shoulder in prominent view as he attempts to sidle up to the GOP’s wrecking ball, offered us insight into his lost soul. His brow constantly furrowed as his eyes darted around the room, unable to remain focused for long. We see him frequently getting lost in thought, not paying particular attention to Trump. Christie is clearly on another planet, praying for Trump’s speech to end so he can engulf more of the buffet. I encourage anyone to – just once – fast forward or rewind through Trump’s speech and focus on Christie the whole time. His performance was that of a brilliant sad clown.
Drumpf’s speech was entertaining as usual. Covering familiar points, the fatuous fuck praised his voters – CNN isn’t shy about calling them dumb, poor, and white – for giving him his lead. Offering little in the way of policy, and shutting down a reporter or two trying to ask real questions, Drumpf provided us with the familiar canon that has pulled him to lead in this race.
As his neck folds attempted to engulf his shirt collar, Drumpf continued to sell his base on his negotiating skills while taking ample opportunities to inhale his own stench with long, audible sniffs. The questions that have been left unanswered, and I’m sure Drumpf would call me a loser and refuse to answer them, is how in God’s name does a trade deficit equate to A) Mexico paying for a wall? and B) the Gulf States taking in refugees? There is no answer because it won’t happen. Drumpf is great at selling himself and negotiating from a position where he holds the power, but what happens when he gets into a mess and has little or no power left to negotiate with? He is a bully, like the sniveling barnacle suckling at his jowls, Chris Christie, and when their power dries up, or the tables turn against them, there is no doubt that this type of megalomaniac will sell us all down the river, or scorch the earth trying. Make no mistake, the sots parading before us are not there to help make America great; they’re there only to make themselves great.
But credit must be given where it’s due. Both Drumpf and Sanders are galvanizing a population dissatisfied with establishment politics and corporate interests buying up Washington. Both party establishments have taken years to painstakingly usher in this current wave of political revolution and creative destruction. Granted, that certainly wasn’t their intention. No, they were vying for complete control; constricting the movements of government to a two party system that serves as a profitable charade for private institutions. Politics is the entertainment division of the political industrial complex, we are told.

The GOP, for years, has worked diligently night and day to keep large swaths of America poor, dumb, and fearful. They’ve been grooming that vein and tapping into it regularly for the last 50 years. What they didn’t anticipate was that it was open for others to tap into as well.
Both parties, by creating such impossible barriers for a third party after the ‘96 elections, have limited America to a two party system – which is why we have Drumpf running as a Republican and Sanders running on a Democratic ticket. This circus has now created a schism of divide within each party. Unless each party addresses the progressive, antiestablishment contingents by catering to them, the parties are doomed to splinter or ruin, with the GOP falling first. The larger thought is that America needs more than two parties. The idea of a two party system representing the vastly different regions of America is as absurd as saying that Texas, New York, Chicago, California, and Florida are all pretty much the same; one you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.
On the democratic side, it would seem that by moving towards the center right since the 80’s, they’ve alienated a certain – and sizeable – chunk of their base. And there is really no telling how the Sanders supporters are going to vote come November if it’s a Clinton/Drumpf race, which it will almost certainly be. More than a few people see any alternative to Clinton as a ‘fuck you’ to the powers that be… At this point in the race, Clinton is not the unifying candidate Obama was in 2008 and she lacks the charisma and charm of her husband. She has begun changing her message, but with a campaign entrenched in scandal and a current of distrust rippling through potential voters, Drumpf has a shot of winning some of the democratic antiestablishment over to his side. He will have no trouble pouncing on her weaknesses and ripping them open like a rabid hyena in front of all the world. (What’s the over under for how many times he calls Hillary a loser? Anyone want some of that action?)
The irony of Drumpf parading as the antiestablishment Republican candidate is that he is the very type of businessman that makes his fortune swindling the middle class, the poor, and the ignorant. His rhetoric last night about forcing Apple to bring their iPhone production back to America, bringing jobs back from elsewhere in the world, sounds great, but has no founding in actual economic or political principal. For any of this to work and be profitable for the company, the American worker would need to acquiesce to a life of indentured servitude – which is what the poultry industry has done to its farmers.
Drumpf is seducing the fat, dumb, American country girl with his glamorous, big money, big city ways. When the lights come on next January, there’s going to be a lot of shame, self-loathing, and regret. But that’s not to say that there isn’t joy to be had watching the establishments of both parties scramble and the two party system teeter on the verge of crumbling. For many of us, myself included, there is a bit of glee watching party politics fail and a joke candidate transform into a sobering reality as we careen forward, almost certainly to our doom.

Like this:

The Stoner’s Cookbook published the below article about eating raw weed. While reading it I was absolutely amazed by the nutritional properties of this incredible plant. It was mind blowing how much there is to take away from that article and how promising eating raw weed is!! Please be sure to read it; it’s linked at the end. I can see a future where this is an essential part of dietary health alongside basil, spinach, mint, and kale. Eat your greens, right? But after thinking about it, there are some questions. At $50 – $70 for an eighth of an ounce…surely buying cannabis for your smoothie or salad is going to be an expensive purchase.

Secondly, though the article points out the amazing and incredible properties, it does not lay out any dietary guidelines. It doesn’t inform us of how much we should eat to get the benefits. How far does 3.5 grams get us? An ounce?

Cannabis, and raw ‘food’ weed, is just too new to the dietary science scene for much research to have been done into the subject of consuming raw cannabis, but boy do we hope that people take a look into this. It is incredibly promising! Let’s say all of these findings make their way into peer reviewed work, some celebrity doctor goes on TV and says, “cannabis is the next superfood!!”, and let’s say, for the sake of argument that the superhealthfoodnut people start eating cannabis like the Koreans’ eat kimchi. I see this resulting in one of two realities. The optimal situation is that raw weed comes down in price big time, and everyone is healthier and better for it. It becomes served up like kimchi in both fancy restaurants and $10 a plate restaurants. Raw weed and smokeable weed becomes the defacto norm for most people. This scenario is like 20 years down the road, cannabis becomes normal and accepted. People are healthier and the world is a better place. We look back on the prohibition era as a major fuckup in the history of the world.

The second scenario is that prices remain high, it becomes a fad among the HealthNut elite, and only they really have the money to purchase it in the amounts required to consume it raw and reap the benefits. There are several different types of ‘food’ weed, but it’s unregulated by the FDA or regulated so poorly that the consumer never really knows what they are getting. Not widely and commercially available, in a ‘legal’ United States, roughly 40% of the market for raw weed is still black, mostly peer to peer. As a result of high prices and absurd regulations, food weed stays on the fringes of society and health. Despite the benefits it’s said to have, most people are not aware or simply are unable afford it as an option.

I hope and think, that as information is shared more and more that we can avoid the second situation. It has long been my opinion that cannabis should be widely available for adult consumption and a staple of both the medicine cabinet and a healthy lifestyle. After reading the article below, and pending scientific research, it is my hope that an edible form of cannabis can be widely available to people. If one plant – ONE PLANT – can have such incredible promise for human health in multiple forms of consumption, while being almost entirely harmless, then we as humans would need to entirely rethink health as a whole. Healthfulness could have a cannabis-centric approach. Or, at nothing less, a cannabis-centric health book or lifestyle book could be written and develop acceptance and a following if the right celebrity was attached. Haha, OK I’m a little baked, but I can envision an US Weekly headline “How I lost 15 lbs. on the Pot Diet – and Never felt better!” Or People Magazine – “Oprah’s New POT Diet – Lose weight and live happier and healthier!” How many years away from this are we now? We can’t be that far. 3 years? 5? Cosmopolitan “How to Introduce Weed to Your Man in the Bedroom”. Men’s Health “The Ultimate Pot Regimen”. GQ “Ultimate Guide: How to Wear, Eat, and Consume Marijuana – in Style”. I just hope that in the not too distant future I can go to my local grocery store, grab some cage free eggs, nitrate free, antibiotic and hormone free turkey bacon, and some cooking weed for a healthy breakfast to start a healthy day* – and not have to pay black market prices for it.

The original Stoner’s Cookbook Article can be found here. We encourage you to read it!

*For the sake of brevity I left out a shitload of organic vegetables that I would include as part of a healthy breakfast. The example is targeted at our changing attitudes towards our food and health.

Like this:

While Apple took a stand for privacy and against unreasonable requests from the US Govt and NSA this past week, the news isn’t all rosy. Now, according to The Guardian and other reports, smart devices can be used to spy on you. From Amazon Echo, to your samsung TV, to eventually your refrigerator, thermoatat, and virtually any electronic device will be connected by an Internet of Things that the government has every intention of exploiting for surveillance purposes.

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

A lonely beach has always been good to me. Melodic ebb and flow, soft sand and hot sun, blowing good in the ocean breeze; the experience always brings me closer to the earth. It feels to me like proof that all things are interconnected, and uncovers what really matters in life.

I wonder my reaction if I happened upon a Strandbeest.

Amazing Dutch artist/engineer/complete badass Theo Jansen creates his Beach Beasts as living entities, and as such each sculpture (machine? animal?) “dies” and “evolves” as he learns what works and what doesn’t. This is STEAM at its finest.

If you’re lucky enough to be in the great City of Chicago, you can see his ‘beests live and in person. Until then, roll up, lean back, and form your own interpretation.

Like this:

The sneaker game is big business, and it ain’t that way on accident. Inundated with images of athletes, rappers, and even Mark Cuban’s weak-ass Sketchers commercials, it’s hard to escape the Don Draper marketing effect. While I get by with a sturdy pair of Red Wings, slip-on Birkenstocks, and a couple pairs of Vans, I realize where they all end up; at best the landfill, at worst washed up on a pristine beach.

Nice steps are being taken for those that give a shit about our future: Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe and Adidas 3D-printed Ocean Plastic shoes are great gestures by the big boys, but my favorite is a small player from Amsterdam. Oats, pictured above, not only look dope but are fully biodegradable. Put your favorite seeds in the stash pocket in the tongue, bury them, and watch your harvest bloom.

Music from the artist T_A_M, an Aberdeen based producer. This excellent mix is filled with curious sounds and downtempo vibes. For those of us who are unable to be at home, T_A_M does inspire us to relisten in the comfort of our own crib. But I argue that this soundtrack provides an excellent vibe for being out and about.

Like this:

First off, I realize what I’m doing to you Puff fans with this post. While many seek out unique experience and visuals with your daily puff, knee-jerkers might immediately see a see a nightmarish creature and skip right on by. That said, photographer Nicky Bay will change an outlook with these insane micro looks at some of the most hauntingly beautiful examples of evolution in our six and eight-legged cohabiters. If only I had a photo of that banana spider I found in my mid-range when I was 15…